What's the weirdest thing you've found when moving in to a new home? Talk to MoneySuperMarket and you could win a £300 Love2Shop voucher NOW CLOSED

[AnnMumsnet]

We've been asked by the team at MoneySuperMarket to find out about the weirdest things Mumsnetters have found when moving in to a new home, which the previous owners or tenants left behind.

MoneySuperMarket say "We know moving home can be a stressful experience and sometimes it can be accompanied a few unexpected and 'interesting' surprises at the other end! Whether you've recently moved home or not, we'd love to hear your stories on the thread below.

Also - for those of you in the process of moving right now, don't forget to check out our Home Mover's hub, where you'll find a wealth of articles, videos and tools designed to get you to your own personal 'Happily Ever After' just that little bit quicker..."

So, what weird or wonderful things have you found when moving? Maybe the previous owner of your house left behind a particularly impressive stamp collection? Or perhaps you found a stack of old diaries? Or maybe you found a wig hidden in the back of the wardrobe?

Whatever you've found, MoneySuperMarket would love to hear about it!

Everyone who posts on this thread will be entered into a prize draw* where one winner will receive a £300 Love2Shop voucher from Mumsnet.

Please note your comments may be included on MoneySuperMarket's social media channels, and possibly elsewhere, so please only post if you're comfortable with this.

Thanks and good luck,
MNHQ

*Money Supermarket are not affiliated to the prize draw and accept no liability in respect of the prize draw.
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Hmm where to start... The left behind 30+ garden gnomes were quite strange as were the hundreds of pots of dead plants. The tree trunk instead of a proper wall behind the kitchen plasterboard was a little odd. The blocked in door instead of a wall in the bathroom. The fake ceiling above the stairs (apparently built to make painting the ceiling easier) The hundreds of magazines, two mattresses and loads of other junk in the loft(3 skip loads through the house!). The pallet wood that clad all walls throughout. The homemade 'freestanding basin vanity unit' and yet somehow they managed to top all of this... by leaving a Tupperware container of fat in the kitchen!!

Sometimes I wonder what on earth possessed us to buy the house!

Every single light-bulb taken away.It was a dark and candle-lit first night.

I found a pole at the back of the bed in my bedroom. It made us picturing all sort of 'dancing' that the previous owner must have had.

Not when we moved in, but when we re-did the floor, we found a mouldy cardboard box filled with plastic shot cups. And a picture of a foot

I found an old US Army pistol on top of a fitted wardrobe. I had to call the police and explain that it wasn't ours and give details of the family we had bought the house from. A firearms unit came over to take it away on a special lead container. All very dramatic and very scary for me as I was alone in the house at the time with 2 year old DS ..

In one house cat fleas which was grim and then in another house a chest freezer in the garage empty except for something limb shaped wrapped in newspaper at the bottom. Turned out to be a whole fish that must have been caught by the previous owner.

A cat. We knew the previous owners had a cat, we'd met it. But they neglected to mention in the craziness of moving (they were running behind massively) they forgot to tell us that they'd be back for the cat next day. In fairness we weren't moving in for another week as we had a rented flat, but we did pop up that evening to find a big fluffy grey cat looking very dejected in the empty kitchen.
We did feed it and put a blanket down for it and next day we had flowers in exchange for the cat who rightfully moved house.
Less interesting was a ginormous farm style gate that was in the garage but had no idea where it was supposed to fit. It was far too big for our drive. I sold it on eBay.

Everything .... Literally everything. The vendor hadn't packed up so when we completed and got the keys we went to our new home to find him still living there!
He claimed he didn't realise he would have to be gone on the day of completion and asked if he could have a few more days to sort moving out ! We told him no and ended up helping him pack up the entire property that night and he had to carry everything round to his parents house who lived round the corner

A bottle of urine in a wardrobe
and a bicycle buried in the flower bed

Twirlypoo that is so sad...I was almost in tears reading your post :(

I cried a lot of tears over the lady (Maud!) but I hope we honoured her and her lovely home, and I'm glad we sorted her possessions in the end because we cared about what happened to them - a company brought in wouldn't have. Wish I had known her when she was alive though!

You were very kind on behalf of dear Maud. :)

Twirlypoo I'm so glad you did that for her, how lovely.

In the otherwise empty loft, a massive, really heavy, locked suitcase. I was convinced it was a body in there, but DH bashed it open. It was crammed with hundreds of model railway enthusiast magazines

A whole cupboard full of empty takeaway cartons and boxes, bags and used napkins. About a month's worth of a meal a day for a large family. Also, same house, food debris ( apple cores and biscuit packets ) in the carpet shape left by the sofa. ????We can only conclude that they did not put much in the bin.

A shed full of 'potions' that were all in pop bottles. The lovely old man who had lived there was a bit of a tinkerer so there were also lots of random tools - but we handled the liquids carefully as had no idea what he was storing!

I once found a pair of glasses inside the bath panel of a rented house probably someone still looking for them!

A roll of £20 notes under the carpet (got a very strange look when I took them to the estate agent to return to the previous owner - she was an elderly lady who had gone into a home. She had one posted back through my door as a thank you!)

In the attic, a gap in the brickwork leading into next door's attic (which was completely empty - theirs is a rented house). This gap had been boarded with a very flimsy piece of wood; we had it bricked up.

A school photo of two smiling children in uniform.

A shed which had allegedly stood there for 45 years, which had gradually slanted so much that the door did not fit in the frame. Inside this shed were various tools, and a commode which had been used as a chair for the workbench.

Some really peculiar arrangements with light switches: pull-cord switch (as in the bathroom) outside the front door, still operational, to switch on outside light! The electrics were in a parlous state, after 25 years of DIY by the previous owner.

A cosh, a handmade machete and a bloodstained donkey jacket stuffed in a black sack in the loft

A selection of glass eyes in a rented house and a PVC posing pouch stuffed behind the radiator in the front room of our current house

We've removed wallpaper at a old house and found a slightly disturbing disneyworld mural...it was, however, poorly painted so Micky mouse looked kind of rotten..it was terrifying

Also, same house, a box of pot dolls....yup...we didn't live there long...pretty certain it was haunted

A gigantic pink, homemade papier-mâché fairytale castle complete with drawbridge in the attic.

Also a giant pink stuffed elephant toy.

Also, my parents inherited a tramp living in the shed at the end of the garden when moving into rented accommodation years ago. Nice chap he was.

I inherited swallows in the garage we've spent two months letting them out a dawn and putting them to bed at dusk they've buggerered off to Africa now.